Whale poop changed the course of Asha de Vos’ career.
The Sri Lankan marine biologist was on a research vessel near her home island in 2003 when she spotted six blue whales gathered together. A bright red plume of whale excrement spread across the water.
“I was so excited,” recalls De Vos, who was a master’s student at the time. What she witnessed went against conventional wisdom. Her textbooks and professors taught that blue whales, like other large whales, begin long-distance migrations between cold feeding grounds and warm breeding and birthing grounds. But when you see whales pooping in tropical waters, you can bet that giant whales are feasting locally.
Intrigued, de Vos spent the next few years documenting how the blue whales near Sri Lanka differed from those elsewhere in the world. One is the population. Eat shrimp instead of krill. I also have a whale unique song. But the key difference is that they remain all year round It lives in the waters between Sri Lanka, Oman, and the Maldives, and is the only non-migratory blue whale in the world. Abundant upwelling of nutrient-rich water from the deep sea supports a stable food supply for whales.
Eventually, the International Whaling Commission, an intergovernmental organization dedicated to whale conservation, recognized the Sri Lankan blue whale as a separate subspecies. Balaenoptera musculus indica.
This distinction is critical for conservation management, explains Philip Clapham, a former whale biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service. Small, localized populations like those in Sri Lanka face a high risk of extinction in the face of environmental and human threats such as deep-sea mining.
More than 20 years later, De Vos is now one of Sri Lanka’s best-known scientists, credited with nurturing the country’s nascent marine biology scene. She is also a passionate advocate for increasing the diversity of researchers in marine conservation.
De Vos is national geographic explorer, TED Senior Fellow and one of them BBC’s 100 Most Inspiring and Influential Women of 2018. But that perception doesn’t drive her.
“I am driven to try to make a difference,” she says, especially regarding the negative views many Sri Lankans have towards the ocean. “I want people to fall in love with the ocean…to see it as a wonderful space that gives us life in so many ways.”
set your own course
Despite her love of the deep sea, De Vos’ early memories of the ocean, just a mile from Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, where she grew up, are surprisingly tinged with fear. Like her compatriots, she grew up repeatedly warned that the sea was a “big beast” to be avoided, unless you were a fisherman who had little choice but to venture into such unforgiving territory.
“There were a lot of stories about people going out to sea and drowning,” she says. Despite living on a picturesque island known as the “Pearl of the Indian Ocean,” most people in Sri Lanka have never learned how to swim.
“People feel disconnected from the ocean,” De Vos says. “Life always ends at the coastline.”
The few who learn how to swim usually stick to the pool. The ocean is “not a place for recreation,” De Vos said. “I think this is a common problem, especially in poor countries where you don’t have time to waste and people don’t frolic on the beach.” But her proactive mother sent her to swimming lessons. The girl became very accustomed to the water and soon began competing in freestyle sprint competitions.
But her love for the ocean came from another source. national geographic A magazine her father brought home from the local bookstore. “The only thing that really attracted me was the painting,” De Vos says.
By the age of 17, De Vos had zeroed in on marine biology. Although her local university did not offer such a course and she had never heard of anyone from Sri Lanka going abroad to pursue this topic, De Vos was not deterred. did. And not only did she fail the grades required to get into her dream school, the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. This university has a strong marine biology program. “I called [the university] And I said, “Look, I really want to go to your school.” “I know I’m capable,” she recalls with a laugh.
Her powers of persuasion paid off, and an academic journey that spanned three continents, including a Ph.D., began. I completed my PhD in Australia and post-doc in the US in 2015.
The journey wasn’t always smooth sailing. Her denial began when she applied to college. People will say, “There’s no place for marine biologists in this country.” “They couldn’t understand that there might be jobs at sea, there might be jobs,” DeVos says. “I always joke now that maybe people thought I would go to college and become a fisherman.”
As De Vos progressed in his career, criticism continued at home and abroad. in personal essay she wrote for new york timesDr. de Vos said several fellow scientists in wealthy countries assumed that she would “lack the knowledge, know-how, and interest to participate in marine conservation” and that she was a poor country researcher. He said he questioned the authority of
Meanwhile, fellow Sri Lankans criticized Ms. DeVos for going beyond the boundaries of a “respectable” woman and engaging in relatively dangerous and labor-intensive outdoor work. The fisherman who was piloting the boat she was in demanded to know what her husband thought about her being out at sea and “blackened by the sun.” De Vos replied that he was not married. The man responded, “I thought so too.”
Such critics only added fuel to the fire. “I was like, ‘OK, whatever,’ I’ll show you,” she says. “In many ways, I’m grateful for the challenges. They made me who I am. They forced me to think outside the box. I had to work very hard and really struggle with my job.”
For Clapham, one of her PhDs, Examiner, it is this steely and resolute de Vos that he knows and loves. “She’s just a force of nature, just relentless,” he says.
Creating a lasting legacy
Currently, De Vos continues to study cetaceans. Sri Lanka Blue Whale Project“We have the longest running blue whale dataset in this part of the world,” she says. photo catalog Hundreds of people in the population.
But much about this creature remains unknown, including its exact numbers and the factors that cause long-term fluctuations in its abundance. During the first five years of the project, De Vos and her team observed numerous sightings of giants, sometimes with 10 to 12 creatures “being blown all over the place” at the same time, she recalls. “But right now we don’t see many blue whales on the south coast.” She and her team are trying to figure out why and whether it’s a cause for concern.
However, researchers are limited by ships and can only support day trips, rather than long-distance trips to the open ocean. “We’re looking for a very small part of the ocean,” de Vos says.
In addition to whales, de Vos also studies the biodiversity of their deep-sea environments. To the best of her knowledge, she conducted the first such audit in the northern Indian Ocean in 2022. “I’m doing these things from a conservation perspective. … People are becoming more and more bold about what they can do in these deep-sea environments,” she says, adding that potential It cites underwater mining as a threat. “I work with whales and that’s my greatest love. But whales don’t live in a bubble where everything around them doesn’t bother them, so they have a completely healthy ecology. We need a system.”
The main goal of De Vos’ research is to protect blue whales from ship strikes. Sri Lanka is located along one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Investigation of 14 stranded whales Between 2010 and 2014, nine whales, or more than 60%, killed in ship strikes were blue whales.
De Vos brought Transportation dangers emerged in 2012. It has “begun a series of dialogues” with organizations including the Sri Lankan government, the International Whaling Commission and the World Shipping Council. These negotiations culminated in a victory in 2022, with Mediterranean Shipping, the world’s largest container shipping company, announcing: reduce the speed of the ship When circumnavigating the island, choose a route farther south to avoid the whales.
Another objective is to make more Sri Lankans understand the ocean and the importance of protecting it. “My biggest goal is to foster a love of the ocean and eliminate fear,” says De Vos, who hopes to inspire other managers, or “heroes of the sea.” To this end, she devotes her time to numerous outreach events, including public lectures and a monthly scientific journal club. In 2017, she founded her nonprofit organization. ocean’s wellSri Lanka’s first marine conservation research and education institute. “For me, the teaching component is just as important as the research component,” she says.
“She’s a very engaging and eloquent speaker,” Clapham says. “She’s a lot of fun when she’s doing something educational,” he said, adding that De Vos once ignored traditional presentation formats to create an animation explaining what blue whales typically eat. Remember how you created it. “It was a lot of fun,” he says.
To support the growth of Sri Lanka’s nascent marine biology scene, De Vos advises universities on how to teach the subject.
Rathni Guru Godaji was one of the first students to earn a master’s degree in marine science and fisheries from the Sri Lanka Maritime University, which was established by the Sri Lankan government in 2014 to promote marine education. De Vos was instrumental in establishing and securing funding for the university’s pioneering programs.
De Vos is also a mentor. Gules Godage writes how de Vos advised her on how to conduct fieldwork. “We faced a lot of challenges because we didn’t have a graduate program. [at my school]” says Gules Godage. “But Dr. Asha has been very supportive of me.”
De Vos doesn’t want anyone else to go through what he did. “My goal is to provide everything, whether it’s my knowledge or tips to make something better,” she says. “I always tell people when I die, I don’t want it all.” [I’ve done] To finish. ”
